The Ontological
Argument has been highly controversial ever since it was first
conceived. Bertrand Russell was dismissive, but with some reservations.
He stated,

It is much
easier to be persuaded that ontological arguments are no good than it
is to say exactly what is wrong with them.

The OA appears
at first to be absurd, until you really start to think about it. Alvin
Pantinga puts it this way,

Although the
[ontological] argument certainly looks at first sight as if it ought to
be unsound, it is profoundly difficult to say what, exactly, is wrong
with it. Indeed, I do not believe that any philosopher has ever given a
cogent and conclusive refutation of the ontological argument in its
various forms.

Other common
arguments for the existence of God are the Cosmological and Design
Arguments. These rely on observations about the actual world. They both
precede the OA by over a thousand years since they have their origins
in the writings of Plato and Aristotle. However, the OA is radically
different. It is an argument based upon what Immanuel Kant calls, "Pure
Reason". It is a purely logical argument that has virtually no
reference to the actual world.

Anselm
of Canterbury

The OA was first
conceived rather late in history by a Monk in the 11th Century. Saint
Anselm of Canterbury (c.1033 – 1109) was a Benedictine monk, who held
the office of Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109. He has been a
major influence in Western theology. Anselm sought to understand
Christian doctrine through reason and develop intelligible truths
interwoven with Christian belief. He believed that the necessary
preliminary for this was possession of the Christian faith. He wrote,
"Nor do I seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe that I
may understand. For this, too, I believe, that, unless I first believe,
I shall not understand.”

In his
Proslogion (which means
Discourse on the Existence of God), Anselm put
forward a "proof" of the existence of God which was later called the
"ontological argument". The term itself was first applied by Immanuel
Kant to the arguments of Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century
rationalists (Descartes and Leibniz). Anselm defined his belief in the
existence of God using the phrase "that than which nothing greater can
be conceived".

In the Psalms it
says “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God’”. Thus Anselm
argues that even the fool has a concept of God. A critical passage from
the Proslogion is as follows:

Hence, even the
fool is convinced that something exists in the understanding, at least,
than which nothing greater can be conceived. For, when he hears of
this, he understands it. And whatever is understood, exists in the
understanding. And assuredly that, than which nothing greater can be
conceived, cannot exist in the understanding alone. For, suppose it
exists in the understanding alone: then it can be conceived to exist in
reality; which is greater. Therefore, if that, than which nothing
greater can be conceived, exists in the understanding alone, the very
being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, is one than which a
greater can be conceived. But obviously this is impossible. Hence,
there is no doubt that there exists a being than which nothing greater
can be conceived, and it exists both in the understanding and in
reality.

This passage is
quite verbose, but we can simplify it. He reasoned that, if "that than
which nothing greater can be conceived" existed only in the intellect,
then it would not be "that than which nothing greater can be
conceived", since it can be thought to exist in reality, which is
greater. It follows, according to Anselm, that "that than which nothing
greater can be conceived" must exist in reality. Alvin Plantinga has
provided a formalised rewording of Anselm’s Argument:

•
God is defined as the greatest conceivable being •
To exist is greater than to not exist•
If God does not exist then we can conceive of a greater being
that does exist•
Thus if God does not exist then he is not the greatest
conceivable being•
This leads to a contradiction•
Therefore God must exist

Gaunilo

Anselm's
ontological proof has been the subject of controversy since it was
first published in the 1070s. It was opposed at the time by a fellow
11th century Benedictine monk called Gaunilo of Marmoutiers. He argued
that humans cannot pass from intellect to reality. In Behalf of the
Fool, Gaunilo refutes Anselm using a parody of Anselm’s argument:

1.
The Lost Island is that than which no greater can be conceived2.
It is greater to exist in reality than merely as an idea3.
If the Lost Island does not exist, one can conceive of an even
greater island, i.e., one that does exist4.
Therefore, the Lost Island exists in reality

Most attacks on
the OA are based on parodies. If the same argument can be used to prove
something absurd, then there must be something wrong with the original
argument.

This process is
valid. However, usually there is something wrong with the parody. In
Gaunilo’s case there is No intrinsic maximum for the greatest
conceivable island. How many palm trees and dancing girls constitute
the greatest conceivable island? Thus "a greatest conceivable island"
is not a coherent concept. Gaunilo's criticism is repeated by several
later philosophers, among whom are Thomas Aquinas and Kant. In fact
much of the criticism has come from people who already believed in God.

The
Rationalists

Rene Descartes
is an extremely important person in the development of Western
Philosophy.

He is considered the father of modern philosophy and the
father of rationalism as well as being a great mathematician.
Rationalism was a movement that aimed to obtain certain knowledge by
pure reason alone. Anyway he contributed to the development of the OA.
He introduced the idea that existence is a perfection. He also
introduced an intuitive argument for the existence of God. The more you
ponder the nature of God, the more it becomes evident to the intuition
that God must exist.

Descartes'
argument can be summarised as follows:

•
God is a supremely perfect being, holding all perfections•
Existence is a perfection•
It would be more perfect to exist than not to exist•
If the notion of God did not include existence, it would not be
supremely perfect, as it would be lacking a perfection•
Consequently, the notion of a supremely perfect God who does not
exist is unintelligible•
Therefore, according to his nature, God must exist

Leibniz was also
a Rationalist. He extended Descartes' argument because he knew that
Descartes' argument fails unless one can show:

•
That the idea of a supremely perfect being is coherent, or •
That it is possible for there to be a supremely perfect being.

He claimed that
it is impossible to demonstrate that perfections are incompatible and
thus all perfections can co-exist together in a single entity. Since he
considered logic associated with necessity and possibility was in fact
a forerunner of modal logic and the Modal Ontological Argument.

Kant’s
Critique

Immanuel Kant
(1724-1804) was an Enlightenment Philosopher. His greatest work was the
Critique of Pure Reason in which he attempted to unite empiricism and
rationalism (Pure Reason). Within the Critique of Pure Reason he
launched critiques of the traditional arguments for existence of God,
in particular

This doesn’t
mean he was an atheist. In fact he believed in God, but this belief was
based on the moral argument. Hence we can consider his arguments as
friendly fire. Kant launched at least 3 criticisms of the OA.

They are:

1.
Existence is not a predicate2.
How can a conceptual conundrum in the mind affect a being's
objective existence?3.
Negation does not entail a contradiction

We will look at
each of these criticisms.

Existence
is not a predicate

Kant is famous
for his claim that existence is not a predicate. However, what is a
predicate? The definition of the meaning of predicate is crucial to
Kant's argument. One way of defining predicate is to say that all
propositions consist of a subject and a predicate. For example,
consider the statement, "A dog has 4 legs". "A dog" is the subject and
"has 4 legs" is the predicate. That seems to make sense. However,
consider the proposition "God exists". God is the subject and exists is
the predicate. Thus existence is a predicate and so Kant must be wrong.

However, Kant is
not that stupid. Predicate can be defined in other ways. The predicate
contains the properties of the subject. Kant argued that existence is
an instantiation of an object and thus existence is not a property, nor
is it a perfection. Kant was not so much undermining Anselm's version
of the OA. He was primarily aiming at Descartes' version of the
argument as Descartes had claimed that existence is a perfection and
thus it would be more perfect to exist than not to exist.

Conceptual
Conundrum

Anselm argues
from concepts in our minds to the objective existence of God. However,
how can a conceptual conundrum in the mind affect a being's objective
existence? I tend to agree.

Negation is not
a Contradiction

Some statements
are necessarily true, since their negation entails a contradiction.
Examples of statements that are necessarily true are:

•
All bachelors are unmarried•
All squares have 4 sides

However "God
does not exist" is a coherent statement that does not entail a
contradiction. Thus Kant argues that "God exists" is not a necessary
truth. In this respect I think Kant is right. The statement "God
exists" is not a necessary truth. However, I think Kant confuses
"necessary truth" with "necessary being".

Thus Kant
concludes that the Ontological Argument "neither satisfies the healthy
common sense of humanity, nor sustains the scientific examination of
the philosopher."

However, Kant's
views are not universally accepted. We are going to look at Plantinga's
Modal Ontological Argument but firstly we will look at what Plantinga
has to say about Kant, in particular his predicate argument. Plantinga
says:

Kant's point,
then, is that one cannot define things into existence because existence
is not a real property or predicate in the explained sense. If this is
what he means, he's certainly right. But is it relevant to the
ontological argument? Couldn't Anselm thank Kant for this interesting
point and proceed merrily on his way? Where did he try to define God
into being by adding existence to a list of properties that defined
some concept? If
this were
Anselm's procedure -- if he had simply added existence to a concept
that has application contingently if at all -- then indeed his argument
would be subject to the Kantian criticism. But he didn't, and it isn't.
The usual criticisms of Anselm's argument, then, leave much to be
desired.

The
Modal Ontological Argument

Alvin Plantinga
has produced a version of the Ontological Argument that is based on
modal logic and is thus called the Modal Ontological Argument (MOA).
Modal logic is an extension of philosophical logic to deal with
possibility and necessity. God is defined as a Maximally Great Being
(MGB) and one key property of God is that He exists necessarily. The
argument does not rely on concepts in the mind and seems to avoid all
of Kant's objections.

The MOA is as
follows:

1.
Premise 1: It is possible that God exists.2.
Premise 2: If it is possible that God exists, then God exists in
some possible worlds.3.
Premise 3: If God exists in some possible worlds, then God exists
in all possible worlds.4.
Premise 4: If God exists in all possible worlds, then God exists
in the actual world.5.
Premise 5: If God exists in the actual world, then God exists.

Most people are
initially puzzled by premise 3. Why is this so? One property of an MGB
is that an MGB is a necessary being. Therefore if a necessary being can
exist in one possible world then he/she/it must exist in all possible
worlds. The rest of the premises and the conclusion follow in a fairly
natural way. Thus according to William Lane Craig only premise 1 is
controversial.

However, what
does "possible" mean? "Possible" means "metaphysically possible" rather
than "epistemically possible". Metaphysically possible means "is it
actually logically possible?" whereas epistemically possible relates to
our knowledge. For example, if I say "Gee, I dunno, therefore I guess
it's possible" that is not what the argument means by possible. Thus
possibility is not an appeal to ignorance.

The argument is
also not implying that existence is a property or predicate. Existence
may not be a property but the type of existence is.

Parodies are not
really an argument. Parodies are attempts to use parallel arguments to
prove the existence of things we don’t believe in and so demonstrate
the absurdity of the original argument. If the parody is valid then we
still have to find the flaw in the original argument. What we find with
the MOA is that all of the parodies contain flaws. The MOA only works
for an MGB. For example, someone has attempted to use the MOA to prove
the existence of a Necessarily Existent Pink Unicorn. The argument goes
like this:

1.
It is possible that a Necessarily Existent Pink Unicorn (NEPU)
exists2.
If it is possible that a NEPU exists, then a NEPU exists in some
possible world3.
If a NEPU exists in some possible world, then a NEPU exists in
every possible world4.
If a NEPU exists in every possible world then a NEPU exists in
the actual world5.
Therefore a NEPU exists

However there
are problems with this parody. The counter argument is as follows:

1.
A pink unicorn is physical2.
All physical objects/beings are contingent3.
Therefore a pink unicorn cannot be a necessary being4.
Therefore premise 1 is false

Incoherency

As well as using
parodies other people claim that the idea of an MGB is incoherent.
These are versions that claim that it is not possible that an MGB
exists. An example is the Omnipotence Paradox. The omnipotence paradox
is "Can God create a stone that is so heavy that he cannot lift it?"
The idea is to show that one or more of God’s attributes are incoherent
or self–contradictory. However, it is unreasonable to claim that God
should be able to do the logically impossible, such as creating a
square circle.

Essence
of Argument

In conclusion,
what is the essence of this argument? Is it just playing with words or
does it have a core argument that is compelling. The core argument is
that if it is possible that a Necessary Being (NB) exists then that NB
must exist in all possible worlds. This makes sense and seems
necessarily true. Thus the main issue at stake is whether a necessary
being is possible.

Kevin RogersDirector,
Reasonable Faith Adelaide

ONTOLOGICAL
ARGUMENT

Anonymous

(Investigator
164, 2015 September)

The
argument

Saint Anselm
(c.1033 – 1109), a Benedictine monk, and Archbishop of Canterbury, came
up with what is called the "Ontological Argument" for God's existence.

[Saint Anselm]
reasoned that, if "that than which nothing greater can be conceived"
existed only in the intellect, then it would not be "that than which
nothing greater can be conceived", since it can be thought to exist in
reality, which is greater. It follows, according to Anselm, that "that
than which nothing greater can be conceived" must exist in reality.
Alvin Plantinga has provided a formalised rewording of Anselm’s
Argument:

•
God is defined as the greatest conceivable being •
To exist is greater than to not exist•
If God does not exist then we can conceive of a greater being
that does exist•
Thus if God does not exist then he is not the greatest
conceivable being•
This leads to a contradiction•
Therefore God must exist

This argument
relies on a suppressed premise, plus a double meaning, plus the
suppression of an obvious distinction or difference.

Suppressed
Premise

The suppressed
premise is "Everything that people can imagine in their minds also
exists in reality i.e. in the world outside their minds."

This gives the
syllogism:

1.
Everything that people can imagine also exists in reality.2.
People can imagine God.3.
Therefore God exists.

The conclusion
follows logically from premises "1" and "2" but is false because
premise "1", the suppressed premise, is false.

Double
meaning

I've changed
"conceive" to "imagine" because "conceive" is ambiguous since people
can conceive of things imaginary or things not-imaginary (i.e. things
that exist outside of their minds).

If we request
someone, e.g. Kirk, to "conceive of an animal" he is entitled to ask,
"Do you want me to conceive of an animal that's imaginary such as a
unicorn, or one that exists in the real world?"

Kirk can ask the
equivalent question if requested to conceive of "that than which
nothing greater can be conceived". He would ask "Do you want me to
conceive of something imaginary or something real."

If "imaginary"
and Kirk conceives of God, then God is imaginary.

If "real" then Kirk cannot and will not conceive of God unless prior to
"conceiving" he is given proof that God exists.

Suppressed
distinction

The suppressed
distinction is that people and objects can be "great" or so great that
"no greater can be conceived" in a range of ways. Greatness can be by
size, weight, monetary value, fame, accomplishments, prestige,
complexity, and many more criteria.

So does the
ontological argument request Kirk to conceive of the greatest possible
Weight? Prestige? Value? Size? Fame?

If asked to
conceive of the greatest "prestige" that he can conceive of in the real
world, not just in his imagination, maybe Kirk will come up with
Winston Churchill.

This makes
Winston Churchill God; therefore God exists.

If asked to
conceive of the greatest "size" perhaps Kirk will come up with the
Multiverse, which makes the Multiverse God; therefore God exists.

Because of the
range of ways of identifying "greatness" we can come up with many
different gods — but not the God that people want to prove the
existence of.

Conclusion

When we expose
the premises and assumptions that the Ontological Argument suppresses
then the Ontological Argument is itself exposed as verbal trickery.

The
Ontological Argument

(Investigator
165, 2015 November)

I refer to the
critique of the Ontological Argument (OA) by Anonymous in #164.

The OA is an
argument for the existence of God based on pure reason rather than
relying on any empirical evidence. It has been a source of fascination
for philosophers ever since the time that Anselm first proposed it in
his Proslogion in the 11th century. I provided a brief historical
overview of the argument in #163 from Anselm through to modern versions
by philosophers such as Alvin Plantinga.

Anonymous is a
Christian and obviously believes in God apart from the OA. The fact
that he is willing to critique an argument for the existence of God is
perfectly healthy. Using a bad argument will only discredit the good
ones. For example, Immanuel Kant provided critiques of the Ontological,
Cosmological and Design arguments even though he believed in God. I
don’t agree with his conclusions but it is certainly ok for him to
analyse them critically.

Anonymous only
critiqued Anselm’s version of the OA and concluded that it was easily
shown that it was invalid. Personally, I do not find Anselm’s version
absolutely compelling. Kant commented something like, "How can a
conundrum in the mind result in the existence of God?" I am partly
sympathetic with that view.

However, even
Anselm's version of the argument has been remarkably resilient to
criticisms even to the current day and I believe Anonymous' dismissal
is quite premature.

To be fair to
Anselm, the reader ought to read Anselm’s full argument in the
Proslogion. However, it can be summarised briefly as follows:

•
God is defined as the greatest conceivable being.•
Suppose that God only exists in the imagination and not in
reality.•
To exist in reality is greater than to exist only in the
imagination.•
Therefore a God who only exists in the mind cannot be the
greatest conceivable being.•
This leads to a contradiction.•
Therefore the greatest conceivable being cannot just exist in the
mind but must also exist in reality.

Anonymous claims
that the word "conceive" is ambiguous. It certainly is. It can also
mean to become pregnant, but that is not what Anselm meant. Anonymous
claims that "conceive" also means "imagine" and further claims that
Anselm is implicitly claiming that whatever is imagined must also exist
in reality. Now this is certainly not true and there is no way that
philosophers would take this argument seriously if Anonymous' claim
were true. Anselm uses the word "conceive" in the sense of "to
apprehend mentally" or "to understand". It is like performing a thought
experiment, which is a perfectly legitimate activity.

Anonymous uses
the example of a unicorn. We can imagine a unicorn. Does that mean that
a unicorn must exist in reality? If a unicorn does not exist in reality
then this does not lead to a contradiction, whereas the non-existence
of the greatest conceivable being does. There is a distinct difference
and Anonymous' analogy fails.

Anonymous then
discusses what "greatest" actually means. Now this is a topic that is
seriously discussed under the topic of "great making properties".
Typical properties are omnipotence, omniscience, moral perfection and
necessary existence. Anonymous suggests "prestige" as a great making
property. This does not seem self-evident but let’s run with it.
Anonymous suggests that Kirk will propose Winston Churchill as the man
with the greatest prestige and therefore Winston Churchill must be God.
There are a couple of things wrong with this parody. Firstly, just
because someone makes a proposal does not mean that the proposal is the
greatest conceivable. The "greatest conceivable" is an ontological
category and is not just the subjective opinion of an individual.
Secondly, does Winston Churchill have the greatest conceivable
prestige? Certainly not. Consider another individual with whom
Anonymous must surely have sympathy:

"God exalted him to
the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that
at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and
under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is
Lord, to the glory of God the Father". (Philippians 2:9-11)

That is more
like the greatest conceivable prestige and certainly surpasses Winston
Churchill. It also befits the God that Anselm would "want to prove the
existence of".

Now I initially
said that I did not find Anselm’s version particularly compelling, but
having written the above, my sympathies are moving. It is not just a
matter of a thinking problem, it is also a matter of pure logic. Great
minds like Descartes and Leibniz found this argument particularly
intriguing and I am beginning to understand why.

Leibniz observed
that "if it is possible that a necessary being exists, then a necessary
being must exist." This is obviously true but does not finally answer
the following issues:

•
Is it actually and ontologically possible that a necessary being
exists?•
What is this necessary being like?

Kant claimed
that the Cosmological Argument (CA) is dependent on the OA. However,
historically this cannot be the case, as the CA preceded the OA by at
least 1500 years. The CA requires the existence of a necessary being to
explain why the universe exists and the OA explains why a necessary
being must exist. They are not dependent on each other. They complement
each other.

A necessary
being does not have to be the Christian God, but the Christian God may
well be the exemplification of that greatest conceivable being.

The OA is
interesting, even though it may not be final. I suggest that readers
study it in order to appreciate its fascination even if it does not
result in a final conviction.

Kevin RogersDirector,
Reasonable Faith Adelaide

THE
ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT

Anonymous

(Investigator
167, 2016 January)

Mr Rogers (#165;
#163) summarised Anselm's argument as follows:

•
God is defined as the greatest conceivable being.•
Suppose that God only exists in the imagination and not in
reality.•
To exist in reality is greater than to exist only in the
imagination.•
Therefore a God who only exists in the mind cannot be the
greatest conceivable being.•
This leads to a contradiction.•
Therefore the greatest conceivable being cannot just exist in the
mind but must also exist in reality.

I objected that
people can "conceive" in their minds either imaginary things or things
known in the empirical world. Synonyms of "conceive" would be "bring to
mind", "think of" or "consider". And again we can "bring to mind",
"think of" or "consider" imaginary things or real things.

To pre-empt the
"Ontological argument" we simply insist on being told which of these
two areas — the imagination or the real world — is supposed to contain
"the greatest conceivable being".

If the imagination is where God is then God is imaginary. To then argue
"To exist in reality is greater than to exist in the imagination" gets
Anselm nowhere if God is already conceded to be imaginary.

Alternatively if
Anselm or whoever argues likewise, defines God as existing in the real
world then he should point God out. And if God can be pointed out then
the rest of the Ontological argument is redundant because we could
confirm God by focusing our eyes on Him or with some other empirical
test.

Rogers rejects
my example of prestige as a "great making property" and suggests
omnipotence, omniscience and moral perfection as more typical.

The existence of people and perhaps other creatures possessing prestige
we can confirm by looking, but that anyone or anything has omnipotence
or omniscience we cannot. The Ontological argument seems to require us
to accept the existence of the preceding "great making properties"
prior to proving there is a God who has them. Properties do not exist
independently of an object or entity except in the imagination or as a
hypothesis. I might hypothesize that there exists in England someone
with the property of being a prince but the prince-hood property can
only be considered real after we identify a person who has it.Rogers says that
the "greatest conceivable" is an ontological category and is not just
the subjective opinion of an individual. He argues that anyone who
believes Winston Churchill has the greatest conceivable prestige is
trumped by Philippians 2:9-11 which says "God exalted him [Christ] to
the highest place…"

My Churchill
example illustrated prestige "in the real world, not just in the
imagination". This gets us back to the imaginary versus real
distinction. People who don't accept the Bible reject Philippians
2:9-11 just as people who reject Islam also reject belief in Muhammad's
overnight flight to Jerusalem.

Mr Rogers
presented a reasonable case for the existence of a Creator and
satisfactorily answered objections in Investigator
#127; 130; 132. If Rogers adds to this a second argument, one based on
verbal trickery, one which makes the fallacy of assuming within its
premises what it is trying to prove and relies on the ambiguity
of the word "conceive", he calls into question what he has already
achieved.

The
Ontological Argument

(Investigator
168, 2016 May)

I refer to the
critiques of the Ontological Argument (OA) by Anonymous in #164 &
#166.

In my original
article I described the historical development of the Ontological
Argument from Anselm onwards. Anselm spoke about conceptions in the
mind and this has been the main target of Anonymous’ criticisms. But
let us move on from Anselm.

As far as I can
recall, Anonymous has not addressed the essence of the OA. In both of
my articles I have stated that the essence of the OA is:

"If it is
possible that a necessary being exists, then a necessary being must
exist."

A necessary
being is one that necessarily must exist in all possible worlds. If it
is ontologically possible that a necessary being exists then it
logically follows that a necessary being must exist. This was Leibniz’s
observation. The only way out of this is to deny that it is possible
that a necessary being can exist (and that is exactly what people try).
As soon as you admit that it is possible, then you are gone for all
money; the argument is over. As far as I know, no one has come up with
a good argument for why it is impossible that a necessary being can
exist.

Now the OA is
limited. It does not identify the necessary being. However, the OA is
supported by philosophers at the highest level. According to Alvin
Plantinga, the OA is not a proof, but it does mean that it is rational
to be a theist. It does not seem that it can be dismissed lightly.

I have been
involved in a couple of debates on the existence of God but I have
never used the OA on those occasions. However, I find the argument
interesting and I have taught it. Thank you for your kind remarks about
my attempts on other arguments. Hopefully I am not undermining what I
have done before.

For interest,
see
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/struggling-with-the-ontological-argument.
William Lane Craig used to think that the OA was fallacious but has now
changed his mind.